Killers - The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time by Nigel Cawthorne Page B

Mike Mageau could talk again, he confirmed that the gunman had brown hair and a round face. But after that clues petered out.
    Then, on 1 August 1969, almost two months after the shooting of Ferrin and Mageau, three local papers received hand-written letters. These began; ‘DEAR EDITOR, THIS IS THE MURDERER OF THE 2 TEENAGERS LAST CHRISTMAS AT LAKE HERMAN & THE GIRL ON THE 4TH OF JULY…’ The letters were printed in capital letters and contained basic errors in spelling and syntax. But the author gave details of the ammunition used and left no doubt that he was the gunman. Each letter also contained a third of a sheet of paper covered with a strange code. The killer demanded that the papers print this on the front page otherwise, the writer said, he would go on ‘killing lone people in the night’. The letter was signed with another cipher – a circle with a cross inside it which looked ominously like a gunsight. All three newspapers complied and the full text of the coded message was sent to Mare Island Naval Yard where cryptographers tried to crack it. Although it was a simple substitution code, the US Navy’s experts could not break it. But Dale Harden, a teacher at Alisal High School, Salinas, could. He had the simple idea of looking for a group of ciphers that might spell the word ‘kill’. He found them and, after ten hours’ intense work, he and his wife decoded the whole of the message.
    It read: ‘I like killing people because it is so much more fun than killing wild game in the forrest [sic] because man is the most dangerous of all to kill…’ The killer went on to boast that he had already murdered five people in the San Francisco Bay area. He said that when he was born again in paradise, his victims would be his slaves.
    The killer’s cryptic message brought a tidal wave of information from the public. Over a thousand calls were received by the police. None of them led anywhere. So the killer volunteered more help. This time he gave them a name – or, at least, a nickname that would attract the attention of the headline writers. He wrote again to the newspapers, beginning: ‘DEAR EDITOR, THIS IS ZODIAC SPEAKING…’ Again he gave details of the slaying of Darlene Ferrin that only the killer could have known. But although this increased the killer’s publicity profile, the police were no nearer to catching him.
    On 27 September 1969, 20-year-old Bryan Hartnell and 22-year-old Cecelia Ann Shepard – both students at the Seventh Day Adventist’s Pacific Union College nearby – went for a picnic on the shores of Lake Berryessa, some 13 miles north of Vallejo. It was a warm day. They had finished eating and were lying on a blanket kissing at around 4.30 p.m. when they noticed a man coming across the clearing towards them. He was stocky and had brown hair. He disappeared for a moment into a copse. When he emerged he was wearing a mask and carrying a gun. As he came closer, Bryan Hartnell saw that the mask had a symbol on it. It was a circle with a white cross in it. The man was not particularly threatening in his manner. His voice was soft.
    ‘I want your money and your car keys,’ he said.
    Bryan explained that he only had 76 cents, but the hooded man was welcome to that. The gunman then began to chat. He explained that he was an escaped convict and that he was going to have to tie them up. He had some clothes-line with him and got Cecelia to tie up Bryan. Then he tied Cecelia up himself.
    The gunman talked some more then calmly announced: ‘I am going to have to stab you people.’
    Bryan Hartnell begged to be stabbed first.
    ‘I couldn’t bear to see her stabbed,’ he said.
    The gunman calmly agreed, sank to his knees and stabbed Hartnell in the back repeatedly with a hunting knife. Hartnell was dizzy and sick, but still conscious when the masked man turned his attention to Cecelia. He was calm at first, but after the first stab he seemed to go berserk. He plunged the hunting knife into her